


Bent

by oceansinmychest



Category: Wentworth (TV)
Genre: Drabble, Ghosts, Haunting, Kaz's hugs to the rescue, Mild Gore, One Shot, Post S6, Post-Canon, Sonia's decaying, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-05
Updated: 2019-08-05
Packaged: 2020-08-10 02:14:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20127679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oceansinmychest/pseuds/oceansinmychest
Summary: (adj.) [1] sharply curved, or having an angle [2] dishonest; corruptAn acquaintance of Liz Birdsworth chooses to pay her a visit in her lonely, cramped cell.





	Bent

**Author's Note:**

> This is just a bit gory and not medically accurate, but oh well. I wanted to contribute to JoansGlove’s wonderful writing challenge. For the shock factor, I sincerely believe that Sonia would appear to Liz as a decaying corpse.

In the midst of the night, a banshee spiders her way inside a familiar cell, all mangled limbs. Her arms and legs are out of sync. In age, nothing works like it used to; the body disconnects from the mind, but her mind's as sharp as a tack, hungry for revenge. No earthy scent accompanies the arrival. Sonia Stevens smells of scotch, Coco Chanel, and prison’s sickly sweet false promises. Liz tries to ignore it. Faults it on the state of her mind, on herself, constantly at war with who she is and who she wants to be.

Sonia Stevens’ shadow looms over them all: when Boomer no longer receives validation on a job well done, when Liz looks over her shoulder still expecting that bold, sinister presence, when Kaz presses her back to the wall and stares sullenly at her flexed palms, no longer stained.

This cell had become dear Liz’s home and soon, to be her tomb. With a muffled grown, she turns onto her side. The suffocating stench of perfume stirs her from her fitful slumber of past regrets.

Rotten, well into a state of putrefaction, green eyes - cat’s eyes - glow with malicious intent. One threatens to slip loose, the optic nerve committed to the gesture of a guillotine swing. She dons a cheeky expression of fulfillment like the cat who swallowed the canary. This is no tailored Dior number; so, the standardized teal must suffice. Maroon blossoms across Sonia’s collar, brain matter matting the once pristine, brunette curls.

Swaying further into the room, marrow pokes through fractured, splintered bone. From the harsh angle of her fall, her neck remains askew. Sonia lurks beside Birdsworth’s cot, still exuding her regal pride, and the vanity that inevitably killed her.

Stirred awake, bleary-eyed and bewildered, Liz draws the sheet up to her chin. She shrinks further away, her back pressed to the wall, unable to look at the photographs of her children mounted to the corkboard wall. Her grip white knuckles. Perspiration breaks out across her temple, her hairline, even her chest that’s covered up by a button-down girlishly pink flannel. In those agonizing minutes that transpire, she feels horribly small.

“You- You, You’re not here. You can’t be.”

Stammering fuels her shivering. A state of decay kindles fright.

“Whatever is the matter, dear? You act as if you’ve seen a ghost.”

Sonia chortles, her grin aching and wearing down elastic skin. If she can’t have her pills and bougie booze, then she’ll settle for a good haunt.

“Kaz killed you,” Liz whispers, her voice trembling.

The tip of a finger solemnly slithers down Liz’s cheek. It says, _real enough?_

It reeks of rotten meat, of flower petals that curl into themselves, of her foolishness to think that Sonia would be the key to her freedom.

“And yet, here I am to remind you of your horrible failures. You’ll never amount to anything, Elizabeth. You’re a _lagger_. Don could never be with a cow such as yourself.”

Just as she had done in life, she taunts and teases with her cocaine sickness. She slips poison into the poor woman’s ear. The crookedness remains. A rotten finger pressed against her trembling lips hushes Birdsworth. 

“Poor, sweet, Liz,” Sonia croons. “Witness X was a palpable ruse for a patsy. You were _my_ fool.”  
  
She pats down the blonde nest of curls. Scratches her scalp enough to draw blood. 

Unable to speak, mouth agape, Liz flinches.

Tone dripping venom cloaked as condescension, she leans in close, her breath reeking of malt liquor and garden dirt rather than coffin dust. Her slippery grin begins to fall, as if one too many procedures or muscle relaxants have taken their toll.

Ghosts seldom make sense. With Steven’s body misaligned, the sound of splitting bone haunts Birdsworth. Her head continues to tilt. Every subtle movement from Sonia produces a horrible crunch, craaaack, _crunch_.

“You see, I’ll never leave you,” she coos, her voice rife with insincerity as she stoops to Birdsworth’s level, now kneeling. “Darling Liz, they’ll never believe you.”

A wilted flower droops. The sheet slackens to pool around her waist. This place is damned. Liz is convinced that her sentence serves as penitence. Tears prick at the corner of her muddy eyes, her frizzy curls stick to her scalp.

“No, no, no, no...”

Shrill and deafening, Liz emits a bloodcurdling scream.

Proctor the Protector comes rushing in with loyal Boomer toiling behind her, blonde ponytail naught but a flag in the wind.

“Liz, love, it’s going to be alright. I’m here,” Kaz attempts to hush the babbling wreck before her, brows furrowed and blue eyes welling with concern.

Chuckling with a mirthless smile, Sonia’s bone and cartilage touches the remnants of her ruby lips in a gesture demanding a _hush_. With a saunter, Sonia Stevens exits the cell.

Sweet Boomer threatens to go bunta on whatever nightmare ailed Liz, but she can't speak - she continues to scream until her throat's raw and aching, her lips chapped. She scratches at her face, her scalp, damn near her eyes until Kaz takes her by the wrists and lures her in close. She huffs, she sobs, in hysterics. Nothing takes away the image of Sonia’s dreadful state.

Whimpering, Liz burrows herself into Kaz’s warm, caring embrace. Proctor smooths back her frizzy hair, the way Mum used to when she was a young girl afraid of the dark, continuing to offer kind, consolations that reverberate in her reddened ears. 

Proctor cradles this poor mother who's endured too much pain, too much suffering, and harboring too much guilt. How she wishes she could take it away.

The chill never leaves Liz.

**Author's Note:**

> I feel terrible about inflicting such terror on poor, sweet Liz. She honestly deserves the best in this world. xx


End file.
